24. the yesterday

18. the sentence

9. the show

4.the life

January 2001

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Some voices are loud, of course. And some of those loud voices are aggressive. Some are soft and less forward. Any voice can be angry. A voice can be seductive or rough, calm and reasonable - or, at least, seem to be. Some voices carry their places with them - full of the west, the south, city or country, youth or age.

So here's voice all tangled up with identity and the need, desire or fear to put self out front, showing self - or a version of it - to the world. My voice. Your voice. What do we care to present at any moment?

How genuine is my sincere voice or yours when we know that it has been selected - if not consciously by self, then naturally by family or culture? Do you hear your mother's, your father's in your own voice? In the voices of your brothers or sisters? Do you remember practicing a certain self-assured inflection to get you through a moment of uncertainty or fear? (Just as you practiced a pointedly masculine or feminine walk or a manner of standing casually, mysteriously still?) Can you hear the teacher voice and the student voice, the voice of the shepherd and the voice of the sheep? Strength and weakness in you. Anger and generosity in you. Apathy or passion in you. A voice can be a mask of surfaces or a deep-down echo - a mirror or a window, a wall or a door.

And then silence withholds whatever might be given. But we do not want to blame silence or condemn it because we sense that the truest voices spring from there. Still, silence often marks fear, a decision to do nothing or a failure to decide. Some say silence is death.